Your own sound track: music tempo matches your run speed

Ever wished you had a soundtrack? Music that would speed up or slow down depending on your movements or actions? The new Cruise Control app changes a songs’ tempo to match your cadence. Created at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, the device is iOS compatible, and was designed for runners and for other health pursuits including medical needs. You can choose between four modes:

Cadence mode will choose songs from your library and adjust their tempo to play at the cadence you’ve chosen. Basically, you set the pace you want to run to, and the music keeps pace for you.

Free Run mode uses iDevice sensors, and the app determines what cadence you’re running at any given time and continuously adjusts the tempo to match. Which could be helpful to keep your pace, or to remind you to speed up/slow down. It could also be funny/entertaining with sudden starts and stops.

In Pace mode you select the stride speed you’d like to reach. The app starts slow and gradually increases the tempo until you reach that speed.

The non-funny sounding tempo changes are due to math: high-quality time stretching algorithms (the opposite of auto tune).

The Cruise Control app looks like a good tool for not only serious runners, but people who want to improve their heart rates, and maybe even dancers, theater people, and Think Geek fans for the fun and drama of it all. Thanks to Gizmag for this story.